Theme: effective lecturing in teaching foreign languages contents Introduction

1.5 Mistakes and how to correct them

It is natural while learning a foreign language that pupils make mistakes. They make mistakes in auding when they misunderstand something in a text. They make mistakes in speaking when pupils mispronounce a word, violate the order of words in a sentence, misuse a preposition, an article, use wrong intonation, etc. The teacher's main aim is to prevent pupils' errors. There is a good rule: "Correct mistakes before they occur." In other words, careful teaching results in correct English, i. e., pupils make very few mistakes. However, they make them, and the problem is how to correct pupils’ errors.

If a pupil misunderstands something when auding the teacher should do his best to ensure comprehension. He suggests that the pupil should either listen to the sentence again; if he does not understand it properly the teacher or the classmates help him to paraphrase the sentence or translate" it, or see it written. The latter often helps if pupils do not get used to hearing, if they are eye-learners. As far as speaking is concerned it is the teacher who corrects pupils' mistakes. It is a bad habit of some teachers to ask pupils to notice mistakes when their classmate is called in front of the class to speak.
This is due to the following reasons. Firstly, pupils' attention is drawn, not to what the classmate says, but to how he says it, i. e., not to the content, but to the form. If we admit that the form may not always be correct, then why should we concentrate pupils' attention on the form? Moreover, when pupils' attention is centered on errors, they often do not grasp what the classmate says, and that is why they cannot ask questions or continue the story he has told them.
Secondly, the pupil who speaks thinks more about how to say something instead of what to say. No speaking is possible when the speaker has to concentrate on the form. He makes more errors under this condition. More than that, he often refuses to speak when he sees the classmates raise their hands after he has uttered his first sentence. This does not encourage the learner to speak.
Accordingly when a pupil is called to the front of the class to speak, the class is invited to follow what he says so that they may be able to ask questions or to go on with the story when he stops.
There is a great variety of techniques at the teacher's disposal. He selects the one that is most suitable for the occasion.
1. If a pupil makes a mistake in something which is familiar to him, it is preferable to correct it at once. But in order not to confuse the pupil and stop his narration the teacher helps the child with the correct version.
Pupil: My mother get up at 7 o'clock.
Teacher: I see, your mother gets up earlier than you.
Pupil: Yes, my mother gets up at 7.
2. If a pupil makes a mistake in something which he has not learned yet the teacher corrects his mistakes after he has finished speaking.
Pupil: She first visited us in 1960.
She is a good friend of ours since.
The teacher gives the correct sentence: She has been a good friend of ours since.
If many pupils make the same mistakes, for instance, in prepositions (go in instead of go to), articles (the Moscow instead of Moscow, or Volga instead of the Volga), in tense forms (the Present Continuous instead of the Present Indefinite) the teacher makes note of them and gets the pupils to perform drill exercises after answering questions.[5]
The teacher should not emphasize incorrect forms in any way or they will be memorized along with the correct ones, for instance: Books is. Do you say "books is"? You shouldn't say "books is". What should you say?